A Comres/Sunday People poll was released overnight, the detail of which makes for interesting reading from both a UK and Scottish perspective.

There will be enough headlines garnered regarding UKIP powering into second place in European Parliament voting intentions ahead of the Conservatives, pushing Cameron into an even more difficult position over Europe, so there’s no need to go there.

It is to the Scottish breakdown of this poll that we look and the voting intentions there are as follows:

SNP – 34%
Labour – 27%
UKIP – 14%
Conservatives – 7%
Lib Dems – 6%

The sample size is small but the above doesn’t feel too ridiculous and it would suggest that Scotland’s meagre six MEP spots for 2014 to 2019 would be allocated out as follows:

SNP – 3
Labour – 2
UKIP – 1

An SNP MSP on Twitter has already made the knee-jerk reaction that UKIP winning a seat in Scotland is unthinkable but, well, is it?

Recent polls have suggested that more Scots are in favour of leaving the EU as there are wishing to remain and it is certainly clear from this weekend’s poll at least that Scottish opinion on the EU is lockstep with that over the border, where UKIP enjoyed great successes back in 2009.

While this in itself may sound odd, it’s worth noting that the UK’s one and only referendum on EU membership back in the 70s saw those in England and Wales voting in favour of Europe in greater proportions than Scotland, a 9% differential.

In order to win an MEP spot, UKIP needs to win a share of the vote that is more than a third of the SNP’s and Labour’s. They may also require to beat the Lib Dems, the Conervatives and the Greens (grossly underestimated in this poll as they aren’t named as an option).

While I do believe that the Conservatives will receive a higher share of the vote than 7% in 2014, I really don’t believe that UKIP beating them is so unlikely. The Scottish electorate has proved that it understands the different voting systems at play; that, for example, they can vote for an SNP majority and not be at risk of getting independence by accident and that change at Westminster doesn’t come about through changing MPs in Scotland.

It could well be a similar story with UKIP. The large numbers of Scots unhappy with the current arrangements with the European Union will feel free enough to vote for UKIP knowing that there is no risk of them representing Scotland at Holyrood or Westminster.

This would be problematic for the SNP and problematic for the Tories.

The SNP because if they were denied a third MEP then they would also be denied a momentum building result from these elections mere months from the independence referendum.

For the Tories, they finally have an issue here where there are more Scots in line with one of their policies rather than less. However, UKIP is robbing Ruth Davidson of that opportunity to make the breakthrough and leaving her nowhere to go. She could move more pro-referendum and more anti-EU, but this would be to the wrath of David Cameron who will wish to keep EU relations lukewarm at least and if Ruth moves more pro-EU then she will simply be drowned out amidst the gentle Brussel platitudes that the Scottish left of centre parties sprout out from time to time.

There’s only one primary concern that I have regarding Scotland and MEPs though, and I do hope that this will be one of the main focuses of the 2014 campaign. As part of the UK Scotland has 6 MEPs but with independence we would have around 13. The argument that we have more power as part of a UK bloc doesn’t hold much water when independence would (1) give us more votes in the Parliament and (2) allow our MEPs to side with other countries and other parties across the Continent.

This weekend’s poll suggests Scots are getting more savvy about the EU and how their vote can be utilised, I do hope that savviness grows over the next 16 months or so and rather than sullenly slink out of Europe through a vote for UKIP, Scots move the other way and seek to increase their influence through a vote for one of the pro-independence parties.

It was perhaps Nicola Sturgeon’s words that stirred me into action more than anything else: ‘don’t wake up after the referendum and wish you’d done more’ the Deputy First Minister warned. A clever rallying call to the not-so-ardent-Nat to get involved in the referendum campaign more.

And so I thought I would go about joining Yes Edinburgh, in keeping with the apparent Yes Scotland strategy that campaigns should be local. The only problem I had was, how does one go about joining…?

I turned to Google in the first instance, naturally, but the first result upon typing ‘Yes Edinburgh’ into the search field was the Yes Sushi on Hanover Street. A fine place I’m sure, but it’ll only be changing constitutions if the salmon’s out of date.

The second Google result took me to the Edinburgh Central SNP website, a crucially separate beast to Yes Scotland (I hope). Results 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 were all Yes Sushi again and there was something about the independence rally in there on the BBC too at result 9, Yes Edinburgh West had an event at result 5 but this turned out to be a dead end.

This wasn’t going so well, Yes Edinburgh could do with a website it seems.

I then figured that the main Yes Scotland website would be more helpful. There was no clear route forwards after landing on the front page though. I can ‘become an ambassador’ but that sounds a bit too much too soon, I can ‘donate’ of course and I can ‘sign the Yes declaration’ which I’ve done already. I just want to join the Yes Edinburgh entity which surely exists in some form.

I then spot the Groups down the right hand side. There are options for ‘New Scots’, ‘Labour’, ‘LGBT’, ‘Eco Scots’, ‘Youths/Students’ and ‘Women’ amongst others. It seems Yes Scotland is an alliance of supposed minorities. Maybe I should start a ‘quite well-off, white, straight male’ group but I fear that might not go down so well. Anyway, I’m looking to be a Yes Scotland lamb happily following the herd, not a wolf dictating terms.

I turn to the ‘Events’ section of the Yes Scotland website, thinking that if I want to go to an Event in the future, this would be the place to look. I search within 10 miles of my postcode in Leith and am disheartened to see that the first event was June 2nd 2012. The website doesn’t discard events in the past. I have to click ‘Next’, one by one, through several pages to get to future events. I do wonder how many waverers would be committed enough to bother.

I persevere.

There is a ‘What could equality look like in an Independent Scotland?’ event on the other side of the city later this month. Maybe I’ll go, I’ve had my fingers burnt at a rather insubstantial Nat back-patting event recently though. Maybe I won’t, but either way I’ve not joined anything yet or gotten onto a mailing list. The next event incidentally is way off in March, a ‘Forum on Inter Independence, Scottish Self-Determination and Constructions of National Identity’ which, I’m sorry, sounds as exciting as reading Scottish Parliament committee minutes from 2002. The forum costs £5 to attend, if anyone reading is interested.

Beginning to get a bit fed up with this process, I turn to Twitter. Perhaps that’s the avenue for people wishing to get a bit more involved? The good news was that a ‘YesEdinburgh’ Twitter account exists, the bad news is that there is scant information about what it does or when it meets. That the last tweet was on November 24th doesn’t bode well. Still, I gave it a follow and self-delusionally chalked that up as a half hour well spent.

I began to remember when I first tried to join the SNP in Edinburgh many moons ago, and the lack of opportunities to do so on the internet. I honestly can’t remember how I managed to do it in the end but I found that some individual personalities seemed quite closed minded and happy to be big fish in a small pond, a mentality that won’t attract new recruits to the Yes campaign nor move the polls in the weeks and months to come. So the world turns on and my enthusiasm to join Yes Edinburgh dims, for today at least.

Sorry Nicola.

Many pundits argue that the road ahead for Yes Scotland is a long and winding one. I can testify that the road to Yes Scotland is just as arduous.

Political brinksmanship and petty bickering have been the order of the day over in the US these past few weeks as Democrats and Republicans have grappled with each other amidst unseemly budget wrangling, even as both parties toppled over the fiscal cliff into 2013.
 
Scotland, thankfully, will suffer no such fate over the next couple of months as John Swinney prepares his budget, given the Scottish Parliament has only one chamber with an SNP majority. At Westminster, similarly, a coalition Government boasting a majority of MPs and a powerless House of Lords ensures that the country’s finances will be steered through Parliament trouble-free each year up to the next general election.
 
However, the UK and Scotland should not be complacent, there is a risk that we are moving towards US-style politics and the inertia and inanity that that can bring.
 
The House of Lords is a relic of a bygone age and significant change is required, that much most people can agree. There are two countries in the world where clerics make laws – Iran and the UK. That is not something we should be proud of. However, the change that is most regularly mooted is a second chamber much like a Senate, with mostly (or even entirely) directly-elected representatives from the current crop of main parties.
 
The clear risk here is that we end up with a Labour House of Commons and a Tory Second Chamber, or vice versa, and political gridlock ensues. People argue that a revising chamber is necessary to improve laws but I don’t see what is wrong with getting things right first time and having one Parliament holding up and down votes on the important decisions of the day.
 
Similarly, closer to home, there are regular suggestions that an independent Scotland should have some sort of revising chamber to compliment the primary representative parliament. The current system works well and, with a nod to the ancient House of Lords system, if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it.
 
In Scotland, the ‘Bain Principle’ alone could risk political gridlock in this eventuality of two houses, whereby Labour (as fully acknowledged by Willie Bain MP) refuse to sign up to anything put forward by the SNP. It sounds eerily like the Tea Party whose members admit that their political ambitions extend to avowedly opposing anything put forward by the Democrats.
 
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to see that two political chambers, each yielding similar power but one controlled by the SNP and the other controlled by Labour, would be little short of disastrous for moving Scotland forwards.
 
There is one clean, simple solution, a solution that already works well in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway. That is one parliamentary chamber, preferably with four year terms to allow the voters to hold their Governments to account more often. This would avoid political gridlock, encourage healthy coalitions and ensure that power sits with the public, rather than with the politicians.
 
Whether we vote Yes or No in the independence referendum, this risk of future fiscal cliffs is a real one and needs to be considered and, cruicially, avoided. Unicameralism (a fancy term for one parliamentary chamber) is the way to do it.

Dom:
2013 should in theory be a bit of a quiet year, with no elections and everyone focusing on Europe and the referendum in 2014. This opens up a lot of space for restructuring and planning, meaning that we could well see a few heads roll and some power coups in both Scottish and British politics. I am not entirely confident of Johann Lamont seeing it all the way to 2014. Her inability to focus Scottish Labour on anything resembling a coherent plan means that she may find herself casting nervous glances at the benches behind her as the year goes on. She is not helped by a Labour party in London who have had two years to put the New Labour years behind them but who are still basing their politics entirely on newspaper headlines and what they are not, instead of what they are.

Willie Rennie should be safe, as the Lib Dems are a marginal force at Holyrood and his mediocre performances are of little consequence one way or the other. The Tories will probably increasingly be seen in the company of union jacks, but they know their demographic and will happily stick to it. A change at the top in the SNP is unthinkable, but I would like to see more of Nicola Sturgeon in a capacity other than that of the First Minister’s clean up team. She deserves better than playing second fiddle to Alex Salmond and is far more likeable.

Even less likely is any substantive change in the way that the Greens look, though the newly formed Grindependents group holds the possibility of a more robust radical voice at Holyrood than was previously the case. In an ideal world this will mean regular questions in the chamber and improved media coverage. We can also expect a higher profile for Maggie Chapman, the party’s lead Euro candidate for 2014, and on a personal level I would like to see some of the extremely talented younger Greens of the post-devolution generation asserting themselves more as we look to build toward both the independence referendum and the subsequent Holyrood election.

The biggest casualty of the year could be the Scotsman newspaper. Sales have fallen off a cliff and without a wealthy benefactor the historic publication may well cease to exist in its current form. Without completely reinventing itself and seeking new audiences, the paper will end up as either an irrelevance or a financial trainwreck. This would leave Scotland with The Herald, Daily Record, and BBC Scotland as the only dedicated and resourced Scottish print and web media.

In a dream world 2013 would be the year in which the Edinburgh tram is finished early and an extension to the undernourished streets of Leith is granted, the new Forth bridge is put on ice and the money used to create sustainable local jobs and transport in Fife, and the government announces a system of cooperative home ownership and insulation meaning that I can afford to heat my house.

Jeff:
With a miserable run that includes the SNP winning Glasgow council, Nick Clegg winning his AV referendum, England winning the World Cup and the Greens getting 8 MSPs at SP11 (and the Lib Dems 10), I should probably just give up on this predicting lark but, well, here we go again.

I shall keep it brief and, indeed, minimise it to one single rehash of an old blog post but my prediction, honestly confidently held, is that Alex Salmond will stand down as First Minister and as leader of the SNP in the coming year, allowing Nicola Sturgeon to more fully take the independence debate forwards.

This will be a decision largely based on polling numbers, Nicola respresenting Glasgow and being female would surely help the SNP win over the two most challenging demographics – Glaswegians and women.

Part of the decision will be timing though, given that Alex couldn’t realistically step down in the immediate run up to the referendum in 2014 and nor during any independence discussions. The man has already been a party leader longer than Thatcher or Blair ever was, surely it’s time he wanted a break.

The handmaiden to independence should be a woman and the young, vibrant, fresh, eminently capable Deputy First Minister is perfectly placed to step up to that role in the coming year.

James:
Mine’s just a few sincere wishes of for each of the five parties at Holyrood.

The SNP: it’s time for them to draw a clear line between their own policies and the policies an independent Scotland would pursue. The former is entirely up to them, the latter will be entirely up to the people of Scotland to choose from the options presented to them. No more “of course an independent Scotland would be in NATO”, time for “the SNP will put forward a programme of government for an independent Scotland that includes staying in NATO”. Oh, and please open up the constitutional process. As the EU example shows, governance questions cannot just be glossed over.

Labour: Relax about the constitution. The vote is coming anyway, the No side is ahead in the polls, and your constant confrontations over it do no-one any favours, especially the Labour Party. Take a deep breath and start holding the SNP administration to account for their domestic policies right now, especially their right-of-centre and centralist measures for local government and so on. There’s loads of material: it just means a more creative sort of opposition than shouting and finger-pointing at FMQs.

Tories: Hang onto the constitution. Unionism is one of the few positions you hold which is more popular than your party. Also, I’m afraid Ruth’s not cutting it. She needs to step up a gear or be replaced.

Lib Dems: Do a Murdo – go independent of your Westminster colleagues. Actually set up a proper Scottish party, not the pseudo-federalism you currently use. Then you can run at some distance from the toxic effects of the coalition, and even (shock horror) oppose some of the more regressive aspects of Westminster policy. It’ll be awkward with your Scottish MPs having such a key role in them, but the alternative looks like moderately slow extinction. It might even save one or two of them despite their positions.

Greens: Get back into proper fundraising and support for branches. We’ll never make the breakthrough, no matter how good a national campaign we run, without central support for local members and activists. Build on the growth at a Council level, perhaps by pairing sitting Councillors with target candidates. Oh, and directly contrary to my advice to the SNP, it’s time to raise money for and run a Green independence campaign, not as a substitute for participation in Yes Scotland or any post-Radical Independence Convention activities: because no-one expects the Greens to be running an independent Scotland single-handed after the next election, only the Greens are in a strong and uncomplicated position to say what that Scotland would look like without jeopardising the campaign.